The Songs come in a version for string orchestra and piano, stripped down (by VW himself) from the full orchestral version used at the work’s premiere. The gain in intimacy is palpable in Michael Waldron’s sensitively shaped interpretation, where baritone Roderick Williams is the ideally expressive soloist.

The recording is excellent overall, and the playing and singing of the London Choral Sinfonia is without reproach throughout...an outstanding disc, expertly performed and nicely recorded.

Gibbons’s haunting tune – and Berkeley’s cannily resourceful treatment of it – are memorable components in a work of considerable substance, immaculate craftsmanship and expressive power that never threatens to outstay its welcome...the recording as a whole is definitely worth investigating, and I look forward to hearing more from this accomplished group.

The main event here is the world premiere recording of Lennox Berkeley's Variations on a Hymn by Orlando Gibbons, which sank without trace after its Aldeburgh premiere in the 1950s but receives loving rehabilitation here, with Staples bringing Pears-esque plangency to the solo tenor part. And Roderick Williams is at the top of his considerable game in Vaughan Williams's Five Mystical Songs, recorded in the composer's own astute arrangement for voice, choir, piano and strings.

A moreish feast.

there’s a punchy performance of Peter Warlock’s Capriol Suite and, perhaps best of all, Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs, in a very effective arrangement for strings and piano, movingly sung by Roderick Williams.

Roderick Williams’ diction, as usual, is exemplary in every way... The whole CD is a fascinating set of discoveries admirably performed and recorded.